Mr McLeish is said to lack Mr Dewar's touch

It is his experience at Westminster which allowed him to stand out.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, Mr McLeish was a shadow spokesman for several portfolios, including transport, health and social security.

He was a devolution minister in the former Scottish Office, and played a key role in delivering Scotland's first parliament in almost 300 years.

The father-of-four is regarded as a competent parliamentary performer, but he lacks the Dewar common touch and rapport with backbench Labour MSPs.

As minister for enterprise and lifelong learning, Mr McLeish has had a lower profile than other Scottish ministers.

He has had overall responsibility for bodies like Scottish Enterprise, the tourism sector, and delivering Labour's "new deal" welfare-to-work programme.

Personal tragedy

He also plays a key role within the education sector.

However, he was carefully shielded from any fallout over this year's exam results chaos.

In the mid 1990s his personal life was touched by tragedy.

His first wife died of stomach cancer in the mid-1990s just 19 days after it was diagnosed, leaving him to raise their two children, a boy and a girl, now in their 20s.

In 1998, at the time that most other Labour MPs were celebrating their first year in government at Westminster, he married for the second time.

His bride was Julie Fulton, a social worker for Fife Council, and they married in St Andrews.